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Poor teens in Baltimore 'fare worse' than teens in India
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Poverty is often thought of as something that strikes kids in places like Africa and India. And while that's true, a new study shows that poor American teens might feel the effects of poverty like violence as much or more than their counterparts in other places.

A global study of low-income teens analyzed living conditions of 15-19 year olds in poor neighborhoods in Baltimore, Shanghai, Johannesburg, New Delhi and Ibadan, Nigeria. While all of these locations are affected by poverty, teens in Baltimore and Johannesburg reported their well-being to be worse.

Why should Baltimore teens feel the effects of poverty so keenly compared to their counterparts who live in poorer countries? Part of the answer is violence and social problems.

Baltimore and Johannesburg teens felt less safe than their peers. Only 43.9 percent of males in Johannesbuerg said they felt safe in their neighborhoods, and 66 percent of females in Baltimore. They also had the highest averages for witnessing violence.

When you look at how they perceive their environments, kids in both Baltimore and Johannesburg are fearful. They dont feel safe from violence, lead author of the study Kristen Mmari, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins, told Vacativ.

This is something we didnt really see in other cities. In Shanghai, for example, there wasnt a great deal of violence. Youd ask kids about their safety concerns, and they would say something like, Im afraid of crossing a busy street.

These two cities also showed low perceptions about their physical environments and "social cohesion" or the sense of general well-being and belonging in a community.

Baltimore teens had high rates of mental health issues, drug use, sexual violence and teen pregnancy, while teens in New Delhi had few signs of these social problems.

The study linked violence and weak social cohesion with some of these issues. Fifty percent of adolescent girls in Baltimore and 29 percent in Johannesburg had been pregnant, while more than 10 percent of teenage girls in both cities said they have been raped or assaulted by someone in the previous year.

The study authors noted that the total wealth of a country like the U.S. is not always linked to better social circumstances for its poor communities.

"It is worth noting that in spite of its location in a high-income country, the Baltimore neighborhood had some of the lowest ratings," study authors wrote.
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Book review: Author digs into mining's complicated past and present in 'River of Lost Souls'
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Jonathan Thompson will speak about his book "River of Lost Souls" at the King's English Bookshop on Tuesday, April 3 at 7 p.m. - photo by Amanda Olson
"RIVER OF LOST SOULS: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Spill," by Jonathan Thompson, Torrey House Press, 275 pages (nf)

Plenty has been written about the very small world of a mining town and the very broad reach of a beleaguered industry. From Loretta Lynns iconic song "Coal Miners Daughter," to the 2010 nail-biting coverage of 33 trapped Chilean miners, to the hit Broadway musicals "Paint Your Wagon" and "Billy Elliot," mining is a global story, and its one of heartbreak, hard work and hard times.

Jonathan Thompsons "River of Lost Souls" examines the many facets of risk involved in taking resources from below the earths surface. An environmental journalist, Thompson has reported on southwest Colorado for over 20 years. This book is special, however, because the Four Corners area of Colorado is his current and ancestral home. Thompson is writing about minings ecological, social, financial and political impact on his land, his landscape, his water, his people. That makes "River of Lost Souls" more than a regular reporting job.

Thompson begins with the Gold King Mine wastewater disaster of 2015, which the EPA caused while attempting to drain water near the mines entrance. The spill sent 3 million gallons of waste and tailings into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River and part of the San Juan River watershed which drains into the Colorado, affecting the Utah, Colorado and New Mexico parts of that watershed as well as the Navajo Nation.

From there, Thompson jumps into far stretches of time to 1765, when a Spanish explorer named the Animas River; to 10,000 years earlier, when Paleo-Indians roamed the rivers valley; to the meridian of time, when the ancestors of the Zuni, Hopi and Rio Grande Pueblo people inhabited the land for 500 years; to the mid-1800s and the Swedes who came to Silverton, Colorado, to mine.

Its a grand scope, but telling any story of landscape is telling a very grand story.

It also makes a complex story difficult to follow. Thompsons time warps are important, but they are jarring. His time jumps need clear dates, and Thompson doesnt always make them available. A map would also be useful. Thompsons writing is good, but his sentences can be dense and require readers to do their own mining for the riches the writing embeds. The work is worthwhile, however, as there are many moving parts in any story about mines land, culture, policy, history, money, inevitable disaster and Thompson works to examine all of them.

"River of Lost Souls" is a thoughtful read, but not a quick one. Because Thompsons writings come from 20 years of his newspaper reports, the overall feeling can be disjointed and sparse, which is distracting if one is expecting to follow a tenable thread. This is not a typical narrative with a cast of characters and a traditional story arc. Readers should approach this text as the investigation it is: puzzle pieces of a larger-than-life story that is eons old. If you are the kind of reader who wants it laid out cleanly, this is not that book. But, to Thompsons point, nothing is clean about mining that has never been the case.

Thompsons best writing is in his descriptions of people and places. His telling of how he came to Silverton is familiar and engaging. If readers approach the book with care and attention, they will be rewarded with savoring these descriptive passages when they happen.
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